Math Ideas for St. Patrick's Day!

Guest Author - Alissa Moy

Here are fun and exciting ideas for teaching Math to your homeschooler this St. Patrick's Day!

1. Create an estimation jar filled with rainbow skittles, to represent the rainbow leading to the pot of gold. You can even have an estimation pot of gold filled with gold coins. After your homeschoolers guess how many candies are in the vessels have them count them up to see just how close they were. Elementary aged children will enjoy figuring out the difference between their estimate and the actual number of candies.

2. Graph the rainbow with Skittles and have fun, too! Put these festive rainbow themed candies to use again and have your homeschooler graph the colors in a typical bag. Encourage your child to make a guess as to how many of each color they think will be in each individual bag, and compare their guess to the actual results.

3. Get lucky with Lucky Charms! Divide a box of Lucky Charms cereal to your homeschooled students to count, sort, chart and identify the various shapes. The children can use a circle graph to record his or her results, a bar graph, or a line graph.

4. Check out the link at the end of this article for a fantastic and comprehensive Math word problem worksheet. From Franklin Institute, the word problems are engaging and challenging for your upper elementary and middle school homeschooler. The answers are included, too.

5. Create a survey form with your homeschooler and have him or her compile the results. Ideas for this survey are:

Have you ever found a four-leaf clover?

Do you believe in Leprechauns?

Which green vegetable is your favorite? (A few choices are fine, such as green beans, broccoli and spinach)

What is your favorite way to eat potatoes? (Ways include mashed, scalloped and french fries)

6. Add some science in the mix and have your homeschooler make green paint out of yellow and blue. Have your child use an eyedropper and determine the exact number of drops it takes to create certain shades of green. Be sure to have your child write the instructions for further replication, too.